When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Hi everyone, new RX7 owner who's excited to join the community!
I recently purchased a California original 1993 FD which needs some love. There's be a number of deletes and an engine swap, but it has low miles (70k) as it sat for a few years and is currently running. My goal is to restore most of its former glory and use it as a daily driver.
There are currently three big projects lined up, and would love to hear advice from the awesome folk on the forum! :
Emission System
First I want to register in California. The car had a full emission delete among other systems, including the cat in the down pipe and the air pump. It also has a new exhaust pipe with a cat, but with no air injection. I have all the parts to restore the system except for the secondary air injection pipe and the check valve that goes right on the cat. Looking for ideas of how to source those parts! I also have an emissions test site that is pretty friendly and didn't ding me for having an aftermarket computer and intakes, but wasn't happy about removing the first cat and grossly failing emissions ,
Radiator and Engine
One of the radiator pipes came lose and started leaking a week ago, and the radiator got hot enough to blow some steam when I parked. After fixing the leaky pipe clamp on the bottom of the Koyorad radiator and draining the system I noticed a lot of brown gunk in the fluid. After three full flushes with distilled water there's still loads of brown gunk coming out. I'm also now noticing white smoke at startup with the new coolant, and when I pressure test the radiator it drops from 15 psi to 13.5 psi over a few minutes without any signs of leaks. I think this points to a bad water jacket gasket in the engine? Maybe this suggests an engine rebuild? I'll keep working to clean out the radiator with more flushes and maybe some cleaner, but I'll do that after I get some new radiator hoses from Redline 360 in a week.
Paint
The clear coat on the car is mostly gone, but the Montego Blue paint is generally in good shape. I plan on getting the paint fixed up after the emissions and engine/radiator is in good shape but not sure what path to go there yet.
Quite the project ahead for me, and looking forward to getting to know you all!
Yes, it sounds like you have the signs of a bad coolant seal in the engine. This COULD be a relatively cheap rebuild assuming not much else needs to be replaced while in there. With those miles on the engine it might just need a soft seal kit, and be reassembled.
I don't know how to answer your question about emissions, but all I can say is you're brave to go up against the government to try and make an FD smog legal in commifornia. Good luck with that endeavor.
New Member 1993 FD Califonia
,
